Five years later, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has acknowledged that the company made a mistake in how it handled casting for one of the main characters in 2016’s “Doctor Strange” — and said he considers the whole thing a “wake-up call.”
We’re talking of course about the casting of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, a character who, as originated in the comics, was an Asian man. It was heavily criticized at the time as yet another example of whitewashing characters of color, and particularly for the perception that Marvel had not only taken away a potential role for an Asian actor, but had given it to a white person.